


The Movies Never Get it Right

by Truth



Category: Killer Queen - Queen (Song)
Genre: Crimes & Criminals, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Prostitution, spy movies - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 08:36:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truth/pseuds/Truth
Summary: She could’ve been created by the writer of one of those terrible spy movies and Ame had always tried not to come to Meredith’s attention.  She handled information, and she’d seen enough of it to know that Meredith was exactly what she appeared to be - but that wasn’t all that she was, and Ame hadn’t gotten this far by staying quiet and below the radar to see it all go up in flames.





	The Movies Never Get it Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meltha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meltha/gifts).



In the movies it’s always a nightclub.  A nightclub or a fabulous party, littered with socialites dripping with diamonds and their improbably gorgeous bodyguards.  The scene is set in a glorious whirl of wealth, showcasing a plethora of shoulder holsters, Armani, Versace, and not very subtle earpieces.

Ame hated the movies.

In her experience, the buying and selling of information involved a lot of disgruntled employees, murderers, criminals who’d be happy to stab you in the back the moment you paid them for their dubious tips, and the occasional dirty cop.  It was also far more likely to involve back alleys, shabby apartment buildings, or the underside of a bridge.

The movies also liked to show information brokers as people who hid behind digital security, and bought and sold their information on the darknet, sipping expensive coffees at their glass desks as they plotted and schemed, anonymous and untouchable.

God, she hated those movies.

It probably wasn’t healthy to dwell on them and her hate for them so much, but she didn’t have much else to occupy herself with.  Huddled under an awning at 2 am in the pouring rain, clutching the dregs of a coffee ($1.50 at the subway station) which had gone cold hours ago, her hate was probably the only thing still keeping her warm.

When her phone buzzed, she wanted desperately to ignore it, staring out into the streetlight-spotted darkness waiting for Ronnie to show his damn face so she could get out of the rain and go home.

Unfortunately, the other thing the movies never show you is that if you want that information, you have to  _ always _ be available.  Cursing under her breath, she dragged out her phone, huddling further back under the awning to keep it dry as she glared at the screen.

**Ronnie:**  Can’t get away.

“Mother _ fucker _ .”  She’d spent an hour standing out in the rain, feeling her hair slowly losing the battle to the humidity and the wet.  Not only that, it was really late in a shitty part of town, and the fact that she was capable of taking care of herself and was over six feet tall to boot, didn’t negate the fact that she was a woman - and some people never looked past that.

Bear spray (because it was harder to convict you for that than for something marketed to do damage to another human), a spare set of keys that were sharper than the usual, and a handbag handle that could be used as punching weapon were all well and good, but didn’t do much against someone with a grudge and heavier armament.

It wasn’t like she wanted to spend any time with the police, as a victim or otherwise, and just - no.

At least the lack of movie influence on her actual life meant she was wearing warm, sensible clothes, and her shoes were both waterproof and  _ not heels _ .  Unfortunately, it also meant that she didn’t have a sexy car or motorcycle.  Ame had the subway, the bus, and the occasional cab ride. At 2 am, in a shitty, shitty part of town, her choices were extremely limited.

“I fucking hate Uber.”  She really, really did - but it’s not like she had a lot of other choices.  Maybe someone would be stupid enough to pick her up. She didn’t want to slog back to the subway station in the rain.  She also didn’t want someone to pull up, take in that she wasn’t white, and just pull away again. That had happened more often than she liked to think about.

Ame put in her location without much hope, huddled back beneath the awning, and prepared for a long wait.  She spent several minutes on fantasies of Ronnie getting hit by a bus as she watched the occasional car creep past, and hoping that no one mistook her for a street walker.  That was not a conversation she was looking forward to having. Again.

15 minutes passed before her phone chirped, letting her know that Joe was on his way, in a late model Civic, and he’d be there in twenty minutes.  Half an hour later, it chirped again, letting her know that Joe had arrived at her location.

Ame looked up, damp, fuming, and angry - to behold not a beaten up Civic, but a gleaming limousine as it drew up to the curb.  The passenger door to the driver’s compartment was thrown open from inside - and a throaty voice shouted, “Come on, get  _ in _ .”

Blinking, she paused, wondering what the fuck this was all about - and then deciding that warm and dry and possibly a case of mistaken identity sure beat being wet.  Stowing her phone, she dashed across the puddle-strewn sidewalk and threw herself into the car. She barely managed to close the door behind her before the limo pulled away from the curb and began to accelerate to a speed far beyond the legal.

“What the -” sensibly, Ame was already pulling her seatbelt on as she turned to behold the driver.  In the reflected light from the dash and the headlights, her driver looked even less like a ‘Joe’ than the car looked like a Civic.

Something glittered in the long, curling hair, and that was certainly a very plunging neckline - making the thick-rimmed black hipster glasses stand out as badly as if they’d been a set of Grouch Marx glasses, complete with eyebrows and false mustache.

“You’re hard to get hold of, Ame.”

This was starting to veer into movie territory, and Ame could feel the prickles of ‘this was a very bad idea’ creeping up her spine.  Ame was not the name connected to her Uber app, despite the fact that the phone lying between her and her driver was displaying her recent request to be picked up.

“Worrying about Joe?  Don’t. He’s passed out in the back.  When his phone went off, I figured I might as well pick up the poor sucker out in the rain - and then it was you.”

“Who  _ are _ you?”  Ame gave into temptation and activated the flashlight on her own phone and, not wanting to cause a crash, shielded it as she brought it up just enough to take in some details.

First sign that this had been a terrible idea - the glitter in the woman’s hair appeared to be a fancy rhinestone hairpin, and Ame was fairly certain the sparkles were actually diamonds - a lot of diamonds.  Second sign that she was probably in over her head, limo drivers did not wear gowns like that. Ever. It had a lot of mostly transparent fabric for the amount of skin that was on display, and Ame had never seen quite so much leg shown by someone wearing more than just their underwear.  Which she was not at all certain the driver was wearing. Thirdly was the use of Ame’s  _ name _ , which she’d gone to ridiculous lengths to keep out of any of her actual business dealings.  The list could’ve gone on, but -

“I’m Meredith Oak,” the woman at the wheel answered, shooting Ame a sideways glance and flashing a bright smile lined by dark lipstick.  

“Oh  _ fuck _ .”

“I’d be hurt by that, but I suppose I deserve it.”  Meredith was still driving well above the speed limit, and Ame found herself wondering if they were going to end up on the news.  ‘Out of control, high-class escort crashes limo, second rate Uber driver and random woman dead in crash’.

Meredith successfully distracted her by saying, “You’ve been avoiding me - which is a hard thing to do.”

“You aren’t even supposed to know I  _ exist _ !”  Ame clutched her soggy jacket, feeling for the bear spray.  Not that she was suicidal enough to use it on the driver of a moving vehicle, but still.

“What, because you were behind the information leading to police intervention that landed Senator Abernathy in hot water, and got him recalled, thus costing me a lot of time and money?  Or because you’re shy?” Meredith grinned at her again, causing Ame to shriek and gesture at the red light they were approaching. Meredith never took her foot off the gas. “Really, Ame.  That was clever, and probably netted you a great deal of money. Maybe I just wanted to meet you?”

“Maybe,” Ame admitted, gritting the words out as she glanced in the side mirror for the flashing lights she was sure would be appearing very soon.  “But I doubt it.”

“I’m wounded!”  She didn’t  _ look _ wounded, she looked  _ gleeful _ .  Meredith glanced over, taking in Ame’s somewhat terrified expression, and frowned.

“Oh come on, Ame.  I was in the right place at the right time, and I took advantage.  Do you still want me to take you home?” Meredith again took her eyes off the road to look at her passenger, eyes sparkling like the diamonds in her hair, thanks to the bright light of Ame’s phone.  “Or would you like to recoup the time and energy you spent tonight on Ronnie?”

“How do you  _ know _ these things?”  Ame gripped the spray in her pocket a little tighter.

Meredith’s grin grew, wide and feral.  “Would you like to find out?”

That was the thing they never covered in the movies.  You survived by not making stupid decisions. You survived by being quiet, by being professional, and, most of all, not giving in to the curiosity that got you into this mess in the first place.

Meredith, no last name, was… well, she was a prostitute.  A very  _ expensive _ prostitute.  She had a lovely home, suitable for entertaining, very much in the fashion of those movies that Ame hated so much.  She had a list of men and women who paid her obscene amounts of money and lavished her with gifts in exchange for being able to use her home as a venue, and she’d been known to travel the world, throwing glittering, wild parties for whoever was paying for her well-displayed charms.  She dabbled in politics, went to museum openings, was seen in tabloids clutching the arms of various crime lords and politicians in twelve countries.

She could’ve been created by the writer of one of those terrible spy movies and Ame had always tried not to come to Meredith’s attention.  She handled information, and she’d seen enough of it to know that Meredith was exactly what she appeared to be - but that wasn’t  _ all _ that she was, and Ame hadn’t gotten this far by staying quiet and below the radar to see it all go up in flames.

Then again, if Meredith chose to use Ame for her information gathering needs, she’d have access to far more money and information than she ever had before.  That didn’t mean the risk would be worth it.

“You’re being very quiet over there.”  They’d hit one of the bridges and Meredith had slowed her driving to a more respectable pace, and begun obeying the traffic signals.  Well, most of them. “Clock’s ticking, Ame. Do you really want them to find that I ditched their limo just outside your apartment?”

Ame snarled at the threat, not even wanting to know who the owners of the limo were, but fairly certain that ‘they’ weren’t someone she wanted to piss off.  “Fine. I want to know.”

Meredith laughed, long and loud.  “Good answer. Let’s ditch this behemoth and I’ll take you home with me.”

Ame raised both her eyebrows.

“Oh honey, you couldn’t possibly afford me,” Meredith pulled over to the curb, cheerfully parking in an entire row of cars.  “I’ll steal another car, and we can be on our way. You don’t even have to get wet.”

“I -”

“Oh hush, what’s a little grand theft auto between friends?”

Ame stared through the sheeting rain at the woman in the fabulous gown as she stole a car.  It… was a very efficient theft, despite the fact that Meredith had to take off her glasses due to the heavy rainfall.  When Meredith opened the door to the limo and pulled Ame out into the rain, the woman’s elaborate hairstyle was completely sodden, and the revealing gown was now totally transparent.

Meredith was laughing, her thick-rimmed glasses tucked into the impressive décolletage of her clinging gown.  “Come on!”

“You stole a Cadillac?”  Ame had to shout over the sound of the rain, which was pounding down now, as she slid into the new car.  She was also soaked - so much for Meredith’s assurances that she wouldn’t even get wet.

The doors slammed with a satisfying ‘ker-chunk’.  “Never steal a new car,” Meredith told her, feral grin back, and she was still beautiful, despite the smeared and running makeup.  “Not if you don’t have the kit for it. Stealing an older car is  _ easy _ .”

Ame blinked at her, scrubbing her face.  “Okay?”

The car’s engine purred as Meredith, wet glasses back on her face, pulled away from the curb.  “See, you’re learning more about me already.”

**

It was hard to tell where Meredith was taking her.  Ame peered as best she could through the water covering the windshield, glimpsing the occasional building or side street as the wiper blades cleared away the water for a heartbeat.

When the huge car came to a halt, expertly and illegally parallel parked directly in the mouth of an alley, she had no idea where she was.

“We’ll have to run for it.”  Meredith, who hadn’t bothered with a seatbelt, was hiking up her gown in an extremely unladylike way.  “On three.”

Ame had given up protesting after the car theft.  She unbuckled her seatbelt, made certain her phone was tucked under several protective layers of clothing and grabbed for the handle of the door.

“One, two -”

“Which way?”

“Across the street and to the right.  Three!”

Meredith was out of the car, the door slamming in her wake, and running before Ame managed to get out of the car.

Luckily, given the hour and the weather, there was no one to see her almost trip over the curb as she righted herself and dashed after Meredith.

She was through the door before realizing that, wherever this was, it certainly wasn’t Meredith’s often-photographed, luxury apartment building.  Nearly crashing into the graffitied interior gate was her first clue. Instead of a lobby with a doorman, a security guard, and a hideously expensive, minimalist decor, Ame found herself watching Meredith stabbed at a set of grubby buttons alongside a list of handwritten names.

“Jeff.   _ Jeff.   _ Wake up, damn it!”

Eventually a raspy voice responded, sounding less than pleased. “Mmm.  Merry, it’s almost dawn. Almost. Whatd’you want?”

“Let us in!”

“Us?”  Jeff managed to yawn in the middle of the word.  “K.”

There was a harsh buzz that hiccoughed itself out of existence almost as soon as it began, and Meredith shoved at the gate.  It creaked and squealed its way open, and she reached back to grab Ame’s arm and drag her along in her wake.

The elevator was just as promising as the grate, although Ame had seen much worse.  She was less afraid of being mugged or murdered here than she was of catching some horrible, crawling lung infection.  This place seemed exactly the sort to be full of asbestos, or black mold. Old, neglected, still functional - but only barely.

Meredith jabbed the button labelled ‘basement’, ignoring Ame’s hiss of protest, and promptly wiggled out of her gown.

“I - you -  _ what are you doing?” _

“Getting comfortable.” 

At least the other woman was wearing underwear, even if it was as transparent and glittering as her gown, and Ame glared at her.

As the elevator clunked to a halt, Meredith laughed.  “There’s no one down here but Jeff, and he doesn’t care.”

The doors slowly, grudgingly jerked themselves open, and Meredith dragged Ame out and into a dark hallway.  It was somewhat worrying that a woman six inches shorter than Ame and teetering in heels that had to be at least five inches high, was managing to drag her along so easily.

“This is all a terrible dream,” Ame decided, peering around mistrustfully.  “I’m too smart to follow an insane socialite with flexible morals into a darkened basement in the wrong part of town.  Especially after she’s just taken her  _ clothes off _ .”

“You’re very prudish for someone in your profession,” Meredith told her.  She found a door in the darkness, somehow, and opened it - letting light flood into the hallway.  “Well, at least he managed to remember to unlock the door.”

Ame was  _ not _ grateful for the light, and tried to ignore the part of her brain insisting that she’d just heard roaches scuttling back into the welcoming darkness.  Taking a deep breath, she plunged forward, unwilling to be dragged any further.

The cluttered apartment was a surprise, after experiencing the building it was hidden in.  Not a pleasant surprise, necessarily, but a surprise.

Ame stumbled to a halt, only to be prodded further inside by a shove from Meredith.  “I want towels. Speed it up, Ame!”

The ‘apartment’ appeared to take up much of the basement of the building.  Several of the internal walls looked to have been constructed out of cubicle material, not a part of the actual building itself, and their main purpose appeared to be the display of posters advertising every indie band in a fifty mile radius.  The rest of the walls were bookshelves. Lots and lots of bookshelves. Bookshelves full to overflowing. Literally in several cases.

The place was well lit, boasted what looked like a small office and a surprisingly modern kitchen arranged on each side of the large room.  Directly before her was a large couch, an equally impressively sized monitor, and a coffee table that was actually covered in keyboards, controllers, and other electronic bits and pieces.

“Jeff!  You did not go back to sleep and leave me to drip on the floor!”  Meredith darted around Ame, kicking her impossible heels off and leaving the sodden remnants of her gown in a heap in the floor.  “We require towels! And coffee!”

A disgruntled mumbling came from somewhere behind one of the bookshelves and a tall figure, wrapped entirely in a huge blanket, shambled into view.  A towel was flung vaguely in Meredith’s direction as the blanket wandered toward the kitchen area.

Ame warily followed the blanket, wincing as it bumped into a counter and cursed, and wincing again as Meredith discarded the rest of her clothing and began vigorously towelling off.   “I’ll go get another towel -”

“Clothes, Merry,” the blanket demanded grumpily.  “Stop being  _ naked _ at me.”

“Nudity is a -”

“- gleeful reaction to society’s overall prudery, at least in your case.  I  _ know _ .  This is  _ my _ prudery, so clothes!”  Jeff’s head popped out of his blanket as he growled, and Ame blinked three or four times.

She’d been expecting someone her own age, or something approaching Meredith’s reported age (which she in no way resembled).  Jeff looked to be younger. A  _ lot _ younger.  If it weren’t for his height, she’d’ve thought him a middle schooler, that and the very faint stubble.  He had hair as dark as hers, though fine and straight, and lighter skin. Though not by much.

“How old are -”

“Oh my god, Merry.  What sort of horrible person have you brought into my home?”

Meredith had already vanished somewhere, leaving a gurgle of laughter in her wake, and Jeff glaring malevolently at Ame.

Ame blinked.  “That was very rude, I’m sorry.”

“It was.”  Jeff turned away to prod viciously at an expensive machine that probably produced espresso or something else Ame normally didn’t include in her budget.  “Who are you, anyway? And what’re you doing here?”

“This is Ame,” Meredith told him, reappearing.  Her make-up had mostly been removed, her hair was wrapped in the towel she’d been using to dry off, and she was clad in what was probably one of Jeff’s t-shirts, given the slogan ‘What doesn’t kill you gives you XP’.  On her it fell almost to her knees. “And here’s a towel for you!”

Jeff whirled, losing part of his grip on his blanket, revealing that he was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Have you tried turning it off and on again?’  Ame was sensing a theme. “Ame? Seriously? Oh my god, she didn’t kidnap you, did she? Merry, we’ve  _ talked _ about this.”

“It worked for you.”

Ame accepted the towel Meredith had unceremoniously draped over her head, mostly because it was now obstructing her vision.  “Okay, wait, what? How do you know - who are -  _ kidnapped _ ?”  She could hear her voice rising and thinning slightly with stress and forced herself to take several deep breaths.  “What is going on here?”

“We’re drying off, stealing some of Jeff’s clothes, and having coffee,” Meredith said.  She sounded slightly confused as to Ame’s stress. “And I didn’t kidnap her, I picked her up in the rain.  It was practically a good deed.”

“In a stolen limo, pretending to be my Uber - and then you stole a Cadillac,” Ame pointed out, somewhat resentfully attempting to wring the water out of her hair.  

“You stole a -?”  Jerry threw up both hands, the blanket falling away entirely, revealing that he was wearing pajama pants that seemed to be covered in pastel llamas, for some reason.

Ame was almost past noticing these things.

“Coffee,” Meredith crooned, pushing Ame away from the kitchen area and toward an actual door.  “Get out of those wet things, I’ll steal something dry from Jerry, and we’ll get warm and comfy and talk about this.”

“But -”

“Dry, reclothed because Jerry is a prude, and then coffee.”

Ame was propelled into a large, fancy looking bathroom and left firmly to her own devices.

“I’m going to murder Ronnie,” she decided, completely without any intention of following through.  Of all the things she was, a murderer she wasn’t. “This is all a bad dream, a drug-induced hallucination, or a prank gone wrong.”

She didn’t believe any of those things but given the alternatives?  With a sigh, she started stripping away her wet coat. She wasn’t soaked to the skin, not the way Meredith had been, but she was damp and uncomfortable, and her shoes  _ squished _ when she walked.  Dry and warm sounded a sane enough decision.

Her hair was a lost cause, and she wrapped it firmly in the towel.  She didn’t peel any of her clothes off until Meredith reappeared, a pair of sweatpants and a thankfully textless t-shirt under one arm. 

Her own clothes bundled up in another towel, Ame eventually ventured back into the main apartment.  Meredith was perched on a counter in the kitchen area, sipping something steaming and smelling like far too much sugar.  She was swinging one leg, prodding Jerry’s side as she did so. The tall young man had disappeared back into his huddle of blanket and, perched on a stool at the counter, was grumbling every time Meredith’s toes made contact.

“Come, Ame,”  Meredith’s eyes were sparkling as she smiled.  “Have something to drink.”

“Merry,” Jerry growled, “you promised me you’d be honest this time.”

“It’s just coffee -”

Jerry stuck his head out of the blankets, fine dark hair full of static, and stared at her.

Sighing, Meredith put down her drink.  “Have a seat, Ame. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Merry -”

“Not  _ that _ sort of proposition.  This is business. Mostly.”

Jerry rolled his eyes.  “Pull up a stool, Ame. You’re going to want to be sitting down for this.”

 

Ame glanced from one to the other, her bundle of wet clothes under one arm, and shook her head.  “I’ve got questions. I want them answered before anything else.”

Meredith opened her mouth to answer, but Jerry interrupted her.  “Fair. Sit down. Ask your questions.”

Setting her bundle on the counter, Ame pulled a stool up to the counter.  “Look, how do you know who I am? I’m very careful to keep my… hobbies away from the rest of my life.”

“You sold some information on Carter Blackworth two months ago,” Jerry said.  “Information I’d gone to a lot of trouble to bury, and I was almost 100% certain no one would ever find.”

“Once is just a data point,” as he fended Meredith away from the coffee machine.  “But then, two weeks later, information surfaced on Senator Abernathy’s more unsavoury leanings in terms of things like his views on white male supremacy.  It turned up at the exact moment where it would be something he couldn’t possibly recover from.”

“The very night after he swore his support for further education, protection, and small business loans for impoverished and abused women, half the major news sites suddenly knew all about his drinks with a few alt right buddies and the fact that he contributed quite a bit to the bill trying to force abused women to register their names and addresses publicly in order to receive aid - including at homeless shelters.  Which, alone, wouldn’t have been enough to sink him. The audio provided where he stated that it was so he could track his wife if she ever tried to leave him and have her killed, well, that was the icing on the cake. Even I didn’t know about that.” 

Meredith had stopped nudging Jerry with her foot and was regarding Ame with interest.  “The information alone would’ve made you interesting, but the timing? That was a little too convenient.”

Ame shrugged uncomfortably.  “I just… sell things.”

“Liar,” Jerry said, but there was definitely amusement in his tone.  “I did some digging. Some very extensive digging, and it took me almost a month to discover that this is a consistent pattern with you.  You’ve got a gift for the right information at the right time to the right seller.”

“I just… I listen to my contacts, I keep up with who the buyers are, and I - I provide a service.”  Ame shifted uncomfortably on the stool, feeling cold and tired and uncomfortably aware of how no one knew where she was.

“It’s even more interesting if you’re not doing it on purpose,” Meredith said.  “Now to the proposition. Would you like to work with us, Ame? We’re a little more project-driven than I think you’re used to… but you don’t really have a support system in place.”

Ame twitched, feeling even more uncomfortable.  “Do you read minds now?”

“Nothing that simple,” Jerry said.  He sighed and shuffled off his stool to the coffee machine.  “Merry likes expensive parties and beautiful people to have sex with, and manipulate, and steal from.  I’m just here to enable her terrible habits. She’d like you to enable her as well.”

“How?  No, scratch that.  How did you end up being my Uber driver, Meredith?”  Ame glared at her suspiciously. “Did you just… steal a limo, kidnap a random Uber driver and cruise around the area where I was supposed to meet Ronnie?”

Meredith looked insufferably smug.

“Of course she did,” Jerry said.  “That’s more or less how she operates.  She gave Ronnie the information in the first place, and I made certain he was delayed.  I was unaware that she was going to commit grand theft auto and kidnapping in the process, but I’m slowly becoming inured.  Do you want something sweet, or bitter?”

“Sweet,” Ame responded automatically.  “That seems like a lot of effort to go to just to offer me a job.”

“Weeeelll,” Meredith began.  Jerry freed an arm from his blankets to prod her sharply, and she ceased teasing.

“Look, it’s not just a job.  There’s a… well, a complication.”  He handed her a steaming mug of something with coffee in it.  Ame regarded it suspiciously as he continued. “It’s hard to explain.”

“We’ll do this the easy way then,” Meredith said, lowering her mug and smiling at Ame.

Ame’s drink hit the floor, the small mug shattering and sending hot coffee and shards of ceramic everywhere.

Meredith’s thick black glasses sat oddly on a face that was… thinner.  Sharper. She was still beautiful, in a terrifying way, but there wasn’t much humanity left in her, less as she smiled more broadly at Ame, and the teeth revealed were definitely designed for rending and tearing.

“Merry!”  Jerry shrugged out of his blanket and threw it over her head, provoking an outraged squawk.  “We  _ talked _ about this.”

Ame stared, still frozen by something in the primal makeup of her body that was screaming ‘don’t move, don’t run, it will give chase and we will  _ die _ .

“Ame?  Are you oka - no, no you’re not.”  Jerry reached out, slowly and carefully, and pulled the stool she was still sitting on away from the blanket covered Meredith.  “Look, she’s not going to eat you. I promise.”

There was no response, Ame still staring at the blanketed lump as Meredith managed to pull herself free - looking no less frightening, if slightly petulant.

“I’m not a monster.”

“You absolutely are,” Jerry snapped.  “Put your face back on.”

With a disconcerting hiss, Meredith hopped from the counter.  She landed - looking entirely normal. Well, what passed for normal with her, at any rate.  “I’ll get the mop.”

Ame could not seem to summon up any words.  Coherent thought was also a no-go. Hallucinations?  No. Dream? No. She couldn’t get past the eerie wrongness of Meredith’s face, the mouth that spread a little too far across her face, the longer jaw, the  _ teeth _ -

“Put your head down,” Jerry urged her, his voice seeming to come from a distance, muffled and indistinct.  Gentle pressure got her head down, and someone was telling her to breathe.

By the time she managed to pull herself together, Jerry had retreated and she could smell bacon.  Somehow, the completely normal smell just made things that much more surreal.

“I’m having a psychotic break,” she murmured into her knees.

“You’re not, although that might be easier to deal with in the long run.”  There was the clink of a plate. “Have some breakfast. Warm up a little. Try not to think about it until you’re done digesting.”

Ame slowly raised her head, trying to summon up a glare.  “How the hell is  _ that _ supposed to work?”

He shrugged, sliding a plate with bacon, toast, and orange slices on it toward her.  “I don’t know. I tried to hit her with a baseball bat. It didn’t end well.”

The thought of fighting back hadn’t even entered Ame’s mind.  Her bear spray was buried in the bundle of damp clothes, a stupid place to have left it, but it hadn’t even occurred to her.    She stared at the plate before her, even as a new mug, steaming temptingly, was deposited beside it.

“What’s happening?” she asked, pleased that her voice didn’t shake.  “What is this?”

“Eat your breakfast, and we’ll talk.”

There was no sign of Meredith, and Ame didn’t know if that increased her discomfort or not.  Reluctantly, she picked up her toast and took a bite. 

“So.”  Jerry sat down on the opposite side of the island counter and stole a piece of her bacon.  “Meredith is not human.”

“Also not a vampire,” Meredith’s voice sang out from somewhere deeper in the apartment.  “And I do  _ not _ sparkle.”

“Shut up, Merry.  You have fucking sparkled, and I've seen it! You’ve caused enough trouble for the night.”

“It’s morning!”

“Not helping.”  Jerry sighed and turned back to Ame.  “She’s a… fairy, I guess? And she hates that word.  She’s also old. Really, really old - and her hobby is fucking with people.  In every possible sense of the word.”

Ame put her toast back down.  “I… don’t know what to do with that.”

“Eat your breakfast,” Jerry said.  “It’ll help.”

“Nothing,” Ame said, “is going to help.  Fairies? The sort that steal people and drown them and dance them to death?   _ That _ kind of fairy?”

“You’re already dealing with this better than I did,” Jerry said, picking up her toast and waving it at her until she took it.  “My frame of reference was Disney.”

“Disney is an abomination,” Meredith shouted.  “And I’ve never stolen anybody!”

“Merry, you  _ literally _ kidnapped Ame not an hour ago.”  Jerry rolled his eyes. 

“Pedant.  I’ve never stolen any babies, then.”

Jerry ignored her.  “Merry just likes screwing around with people and stealing things.  She uses magic for most of it, so there’s not a very high possibility of actually getting caught, but - she’s getting bored and wants to expand.  I think she’s been watching too many spy movies, but - “

“No.  Not like the movies.  Life is  _ not _ like the movies.”  Ame grudgingly started in on the bacon.

“But it could be!”  Meredith appeared around the edge of one of the bookcases, shot finger guns at Ame, and disappeared again.  “It absolutely could be. Designer gowns, concealed weapons -”

“... she’s insane.”

Jerry snorted.  “No, she’s just not human, and she has very peculiar ideas of entertainment.  She’s got access to a lot of money, she can enchant people, she’s more or less immortal - and she has no patience.  She can plot and plan, but her carry-through is only about 50%.”

“And this is you attempting to convince me to work for her?  Your pitch sucks.”

“I made you bacon, that should count for something.”  Jerry stole another piece. “Look, she wants to star in her very own spy movie.  She has money, influence, and magic. What’s the harm?”

“We could all die?”  Ame reached out and snatched the bacon away from him.  “I  _ hate _ the movies.  They have absolutely no relation to reality, and I’ve never seen a movie plot that wouldn’t completely collapse the moment it was applied in a real world situation.”

“Maaagiccc,” Meredith crooned, swooping out from behind one of the bookcases and wiggling her fingers at Ame.  “But real world situations are why I have Jerry. It’s his job to make sure things work out.”

Jerry grimaced.  “You do not pay me enough.”

“Convince Ame to help us and I’ll give you a raise.”

Ame scowled at her, fear slowly fading with Meredith’s antics.  “And you need me because?”

“Because,” as a slow smile crept across Meredith’s lovely face, “you have a knack.”

“Because,” Jerry said, “you hate the movies.  You’re not going to just go along with her bizarre fits and starts because it sounds like fun, you’re going to dig in your heels and say no.”

“Because that’s worked out for me so far?”  Ame sighed. “I make my living by being quiet, reliable, and  _ hard to find _ .  I’m fairly certain that this is the exact opposite of that.”

 

“I can hide you,” Meredith promised, coming back to perch on the counter again.  She ignored how Ame inched herself and her breakfast slowly away. “I’m very, very good at that.  Besides, why not a guaranteed paycheck instead of having to live from sale to sale?”

“I’ve read fairy tales, Meredith.  I’m not at all sure any money you pay me won’t turn into straw or pebbles at dawn.”  Ame finished her breakfast, despite a lack of appetite, and reached for the mug. “Besides, everything I’ve ever seen and heard about you says that subtle is not your oeuvre.”

“I’m offended,” Meredith said. She didn't look particularly offended. She looked _smug_.

“Liar.”  Jerry frowned at her.  “Direct deposit is a thing, Ame.  She doesn’t actually hand over handfuls of fairy gold.  Her string of victims give her plenty of actual money - and given how high profile the rest of her life is, she’s actually very good at hiding the rest of it.”

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable with risking my life in the employ of a scary woman with carnivorous teeth, a dubious background of fraud and theft, and an apparent kidnapping fetish,” Ame said.

Meredith actually giggled, earning herself disapproving looks from both Ame and Jerry.

“I’m still not even sure what you want from me!”

“I want you to work for me,” Meredith said.  “I need someone who can find useful information and is willing to give it to me.  More importantly, your track record argues that you’ll be exceptionally good at it.”

Ame eyed her warily.  “And if I don’t deliver, you’ll eat me.”

“I don’t  _ eat _ people.”

“That’s… true enough,” Jerry admitted.  “Apparently people are full of pollutants and medications and metals.  Eating a human would make her sick.”

“Also?  Ew.” Meredith wrinkled her nose.  “People would never be FDA approved for consumption.  You’d have to constantly scan for venereal diseases, gastrointestinal issues -”

“Stop.”  Ame looked at her empty breakfast plate and deeply regretted having eaten any of it.  “What happens if I say no, then?”

“I’ll take you home, and you won’t remember a thing about any of this.”

“What?”

“Magic,” Jerry said, thankfully without that dramatic finger wiggling.  “You’ll remember a subway ride and trudging home in the rain, and that will be the end of it.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”  Ame’s profession was information. The thought of losing so much of it gave her the willies.

“Then say yes,” Meredith said.  “You won’t have to change anything.  Well, except maybe your address. And your wardrobe.  I can’t have a  _ frumpy _ associate.”

“Merry, please stop helping.”  Jerry sighed. “Look, take a few days.  Think about it. Deciding to get mixed up with the fantasies of the Fae is, honestly, a terrible idea.  It worked out for me, but I wasn’t in the best of places to start with. On the other hand - money, adventure, political manipulation -”

“- the occasional explosion, car chase -”

“Merry?  Don’t  _ speak _ .”

Ame shook her head.  “I want to go home. I think you’re both crazy - but I’ll think about it.”

“We’ll call you a taxi,” Jerry said, with a sideways look at Meredith.  “Let’s… stay away from Uber for a bit.”

**

Four hours later, Ame sat on her couch in her tiny apartment.  She’d arrived home, her things still bundled in a damp blanket and wearing Jerry’s clothes, exhausted, confused, afraid - and absolutely couldn’t sleep.

The small television was showing a spy movie, the sort she despised.  There were beautiful women wearing revealing gowns and a small fortune in jewelry.  There were handsome men, armed to their gleaming teeth with improbable gadgets, oozing charm at everyone.  Gunfights (which don’t work that way), car chases (which defied the laws of physics and probability), plots to destroy the world (which were not only impractical but completely half-assed) -

It was still stupid.  It still made no sense.  There was nothing about the glitter and adrenaline and violence that was the slightest bit appealing when held up against her own life.   _ Nothing _ .

Jerry had pressed a small business card into her hand before the taxi had arrived.  It said ‘Jerome Blacksmoke - IT Services’ and had an email address and a phone number on it.  She’d been flipping it between her fingers as she stared at the movie, mentally cataloguing every inaccuracy, every way in which the story playing out before her could  _ never _ work - and wondering.

As the movie ended, with a passionate kiss and the requisite explosions, she pulled out her phone and dialed.

“ _ Ame?” _

“I should be upset that you have my personal phone number, or are at least familiar enough with it to recognize it, but I think I’m past that.”

“ _... is that a good thing _ ?”

“No.  But I’m getting used to it.”  Ame sighed. “I want to know more.  About Meredith, about you, about what’s going on here.”

“ _ Fair enough.  Do you like tacos?” _

“Yes?”

“ _ I’ll have some ready around eight.  Merry’s gone back to her latest fling, so she won’t be here.  If that helps.” _

“It really, really does.”

“ _ See you at eight.” _

Ame hung up the phone, suddenly feeling her exhaustion as a promise of a long, hard sleep.

The thought of being the sort of information broker you saw in the movies was starting to grow on her.  Actually being the mysterious voice on the phone, employing a high tech office, being able to graze on the leftover canapés from the fabulous party her employer had thrown the night before - right before buying and selling the souls of the party-goers.

“This is the worst idea I’ve ever had.”

She fell asleep to visions of Meredith, gliding through a fabulous party, her hand tucked into the arm of a crime boss, smiling through her sharp, sharp teeth as the crowd parted before her.

It looked…  _ right _ .


End file.
